Get in Touch

Monthly Archives November 2015

The reform movement in which Jan Hus (1369 – 1415) was a major figure was undoubtedly a major factor in the historical process that led a century later to the Protestant Reformation. The theological and spiritual conflicts were deeply connected to political and nationalist issues: The relationships between the political rulers: Wenceslaus (Vaclav) IV, the King of Bohemia; Sigismund, his half-brother, King of Hungary and later also King of Germany. The context of the great papal schism, which reached its climax with 3 claimants to the papacy in the last years of Hus’s life (1409 – 15). Hus madeRead More

Issues concerning the Eucharist played a central role in the conflict that broke out in Bohemia in the first years of the fifteenth century between Jan Hus, a reforming priest, and the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. In fact the reforms advocated by Hus were wider than the Eucharist, but the dispute over communion from the chalice became the top symbolic issue. After the death of Hus, the chalice became a symbol for the Hussites, and often decorated their weapons of war. However, the theology and the practice of the Eucharist had already suffered various forms of distortion and of narrowingRead More